Seeking another long-term RP partner for original settings

[HeyGayzelle]

So last time I made a thread here, I came through with a fairly specific pitch about the RP I'd like to do. This time I guess I'm going to do the exact opposite and just post a broad outline of preferences and things that I might like to try.


Genres:


-Cyberpunk


-Post-Apocalyptic


-Fantasy


-Space Western


-Science Fantasy


-Western


Post detail:


My posts are usually in the casual/detailed range, at least a solid paragraph at minimum. I typically write in third-person present tense with reasonably solid grammar and spelling, so please be willing/able to reciprocate. I'm open to utilizing things like scene transitions and time skips and such when it proves to be helpful for the sake of expediency, but I enjoy relatively substantial interactions with characters and environments. I have an active RP here which should give a broad picture of my writing style.


Likes:


-Good worldbuilding that also has a sense of brevity


-Sociopolitical intrigue


-Plausible characters/motivations


-Good OoC rapport


-LGBTQ-friendly players


-Good posting pace (I'm pretty understanding about time constraints, but I'd say at least one exchange of posts per-day is my ideal "baseline")


Dislikes:


-Player character romance (I'm not ancient, but I'm old enough for the prospect of romantically RPing with a minor to fill me with a sense of dread)


-"Horde invasion" plots (This essentially means any story where the prospect of being killed by some paranormal creature like a zombie, orc, or alien is the conduit for 95% of the dramatic tension in the story)


-Fandom RP (I'm totally okay with using an existing work as a frame of reference and making something new ostensibly modeled off it, but I don't like being tied to an existing IP)


-Schmaltzy characters/conflicts (or rather, lack of conflict)


Maybes:


-Dice system (Never played with dice for any amount of time, but a very basic system like Simple d6 or something homebrew might be fun)


-Vehicle/Mecha (If done with less of an anime flair)


-Competitive/Sport (a fictional death sport such as Rollerball could be fun)


-Anthro setting/characters


And I believe that's most of the important stuff I can think of off the top of my head. Please let me know if anything piques your interest. I'm open to hearing other ideas and I anticipate a reasonably involved collaboration phase before I kick off a new RP anyway.

 

[MorganaLeFay]

Hey! I have quite a few good (in my opinion) fantasy plots, if you want to hear them.

 

[HeyGayzelle]

Cool, I'm open to hearing your ideas if you'd like to share. I'm currently cooking up some really lightweight science fantasy dice rules, so I think I could get in the mood for something fantasy-related.

 

[MorganaLeFay]

Alright.

 

[MorganaLeFay]

Just give me a moment, I'm trying to reply to someone else who just showed up and get all of them together. Sorry to keep you waiting.

 

[HeyGayzelle]

Lol, it's no sweat. I mean, it's literally been one minute. Just feel free to drop me something when you can find the time.

 

[MorganaLeFay]

Fantasy - Elementals


Fantasy - Wolf Pack


Fantasy - Need A Group For This Fantasy Plot Idea I've been trying to turn this one into a 1x1


Now the ones I don't have links for:


My character, an elf healer (can be male or female) lives in the middle of the forest all alone.


You character, (once again can be male or female) gets injured by something in the forest (could be as simple as tripping and spraining an ankle) and is found by my character.


The elf takes them to their lovely little home in the forest to be cared for, and then things ensue


There is a small community of nonhumans/humans with unusual powers, living in a Victorian style house in the forests of New England. There are two demons, one 'male' and one 'female', a young werewolf boy, a fairy girl, something in the library, a very nice ogre in the forest, a Siren in the lake, a small sprite village living in the rose bushes... There's a lot. (most of which will not come into play, but I am willing to play all of them unless you want to do more than one character). And then there's the leader of the house, a man(?) that no one knows what exactly what he is. He takes care of every one, and make sure everyone stays safe.


Your character somehow made your way here, and was accepted into the house.


And then things ensue.

 

[HeyGayzelle]

Certain aspects of the elementals, elf healer, and dragon hunt RP ideas seem like they could be interesting, but I would like to avoid a player dynamic where one of us has a very detailed picture of the setting and the broad direction of the story while the other person is just sort of playing reactively.


Do you have any interest in trying to play with dice? The system I'm working on takes some cues from old RPGs like Phantasy Star and I think it should adapt quite easily to the dragon hunt story. The entire thing is simple enough to fit on a single piece of paper (front and back) and it's designed to be run without a GM. It's fine if you just don't have any interest, but this could be a way of adding a little bit of drama and uncertainty to an otherwise straightforward story.

 

[MorganaLeFay]

Sounds interesting, though I've never RPed with dice before

 

[HeyGayzelle]

Well, I really haven't either! So we'll both be in the same boat in that sense. It still needs a bit of work, but I'd say it's a little over halfway done. It might have to be tweaked if you want to go for a more traditional fantasy feel, but it should be relatively adaptable.


I'll and paste what I have to give a sense of how the system works, but some things aren't explained. It might look like a bit of a mess in this format. Combat is pretty lightweight, but still has some room for synergy. The player character's roll and the enemy's attack (if they hit) are resolved using the same dice roll. But let me know if this incomplete rules set totally fails to convey even the general idea of the game.

Character stats/skills


BODY


Fighter: Skill in hand-to-hand combat


Athlete: Perform feats of endurance and strength


Acrobat: Perform feats of coordination and poise


Glamour: Appeal to others with your good looks


MIND


Blaster: Use projectile weapons and explosives


Insight: Use deduction, knowledge, and inference to detect clues, lies, motivations, etc.


Tekker: Understanding of advanced mundane and magical technology


Pilot: Operate vehicles from land, sea, air, or space


SOUL


Psion: Utilize extrasensory perception and projection


Sorcerer: Utilize destructive and violent magical energies


Cleric: Utilize benevolent and peaceful magical energies


Integrity: Others will heed your oaths, but your word is your bond


FATE


Trickster: Deceive, elude, and misdirect others with your guile.


Prestige: Wealth, status, or both give you influence with others


Artisan: Create and modify mundane and magical items.


Negotiator: Skill in making deals and bargains of all kinds.


Perks


Untouchable: Ignore the first strike against you in any given combat scene.


Haste: Once per combat, you may act twice in a given turn provided you were not struck on the first roll.


Soar: You may fly up to 25m for a short time.


Champion: First Fighter attack against an enemy increased by 1 strike.


Sharpshooter: First Blaster attack against an enemy increased by 1 strike.


Warlock: First Sorcery attack against an enemy increased by 1 strike.


Berserker: Take -2 to your roll for each strike against you while in combat.


Crowd Control: Once per combat, you may try to strike every enemy at no additional risk.


Darksight: You have no trouble seeing in low-light environments.


Erudite: Your linguistic and cultural knowledge is exemplary.


Rally: Roll on Body to try and resist one strike that would otherwise down you.


Heal: You or an ally may recover 1 strike in or out of battle.


Sneak Attack: Once per combat, you may roll on Trickster to attack. Automatically deal two strikes if you succeed.


Character Creation


Begin with 28 stat points, 7 skills, and 2 perks. Start with no stat lower than 4 or higher than 10. You may only have one stat with no associated skills.


Performing Actions


When performing actions with a non-trivial degree of risk, choose 1, 2, or 3 dice as the difficulty of the action. Take the sum of your dice roll(s) and compare it to the value of the stat the skill belongs to. If the sum is equal or lower, you succeed. If it is higher, you fail. (Harder actions will have better payouts in an EXP-like rewards system. I'm still working on this part)


Characters who do not possess a certain skill must try to avoid using it while role-playing. But if they are forced to try, increase the roll by 3.


RPing Skills: Have an idea for the style or form of a character’s skills and keep these in mind when considering difficulties. I.E., a fighter pilot may have less experience flying a heavy frigate ship, so they’d take a 2 or 3.


Since this is a very rules-light game that aims for brevity, utilize narrative discretion or modify the rules for dire circumstances such as boss battles.


Combat


Combat uses the standard skill check roll on Fighter, Blaster, and Sorcerer with two more rules: deal an extra strike if your stat exceeds the roll by a margin of 4 or greater, and take a strike if the roll exceeds the stat by a margin of 3 or greater.


Strikes are the basic unit of damage.


After taking 3 strikes, a combatant is downed and unable to continue fighting in any serious capacity for that scene.


All player characters recover from 1 strike at the end of a combat scene.


To defend, subtract 3 points from your roll at the expense of being unable to deliver a strike that turn.


To focus, subtract 2 points from your roll at the expense of being unable to attack for that turn, and then take that same bonus on your next roll.


Optional Rules


Fatigue: Lower stat score by 1 with each successful skill use, counting combat scenes as a single use. Remove the penalties after resting.


Party Scaling: Subtract 3 stat points and 1 aspect for each additional character beyond the first two


Outnumbered: Increase rolls in combat by 1 or 2 for each enemy not being directly engaged by a character.


Big Bombs: Successful combat use of explosives downs one/all enemy combatant(s) in a scene.


Easier Combat: Lower and increase the margins for dealing an extra strike and taking a strike (respectively) by 1.


Combat Specialization: For more team-based fights, give enemies resistance against certain attack types by adding penalties to those rolls, limiting those strikes to 1 per turn, or have them resist the strikes entirely.


Perk Progression: Allow additional uses of certain perks for each point invested in them beyond the first.


Buffs: You may temporarily confer some perks to other characters following a successful roll on Cleric.

 

[MorganaLeFay]

Just skimming through it real quick, it seems a bit like D&D, which I have a bit of experience with.


I shall now peruse it a more thorough manner...

 

[MorganaLeFay]

Wow that is really confusing.

 

[HeyGayzelle]

Yeah, conceptually it's pretty similar, but it's nowhere near as heavy. Skills are just binary values, and perks are just abstracted benefits that still leave quite a bit open from an RP standpoint. For example, a perk like soar could represent a character's magical abilities, some piece of gear they have like a jetpack, or even part of their body if they happen to have wings or something.


Is there any particular aspect you find confusing? The game basically just utilizes a roll-under mechanic, with combat results being determined by margin of success/failure. I could show you how a few hypothetical skill checks would work if you would like to see it in action, but I understand if you're just not feeling it either.

 

[MorganaLeFay]

The entire concept is cool, I'm just not grasping the entirety of it.


The hypothetical things might help a bit.

 

[HeyGayzelle]

Okay then, give me a few minutes and I'll spec out a character and run through some skill tests just to show how it works. Should be reasonably easy to get the sense of there. I imagine the formatting kind of killed the flow, because the idea behind was that you'd print it on two sides of a piece of paper, fold it up like a brochure, and the paper would function both as both the rules and the character sheet.

 

[MorganaLeFay]

Ah. Makes sense. Well, take your time

 

[HeyGayzelle]

Okay, so let's consider the following character for this demonstration. Our prospective dragon slayer has 28 points distributed across his stats, 7 skills selected, and 2 perks, as described in the rules.


Name: Percival


Body:9


-Fighter


-Athlete


-Acrobat


Mind:5


-Insight


Soul:6


-Integrity


Fate:8


-Artisan


-Prestige


Perks


-Champion


-Haste

Alright, so let's assume Percival wants to borrow a proton axe from an acquaintance of his, Thuren. Since Percival is asking Thuren a favor that demands some trust, we roll on Integrity. And since Thuren knows Percival but is not a close friend, we decide that the difficulty for this action is two dice. So we roll the dice and the results are 2 and 4, making the total of the roll 6. We can see that Percival has a 6 in Soul, the governing stat for Integrity. Since this number is equal or higher than the result of the roll, Percival succeeds, and Thoren lends him his axe (perhaps reluctantly).
Then Percival takes the axe and goes monster hunting with it in some caves where he encounters a giant spider. Percival decides he wants to take it on up close, so he rushes in to attack with the axe. So now we're going to attack using the Fighter skill. The giant spider is a reasonably fierce enemy, but not the toughest thing Percival has faced, so the difficulty is two dice once again. So we roll two dice, and this time we get 2 and 3, making for a total of 5.


Seeing as Percival has a 9 in Body, the governing stat for Fighter, he lands the first hit and deals a strike in damage to the spider. But wait! Since his stat exceeds the roll by a margin of 4, he deals a second strike this round! Furthermore, since he has the Gladiator perk and this is his first hit against this enemy during this fight, he deals yet another strike! Three strikes and the spider is down! Percival was able to defeat it before it had any time to react.


After defeating the spider, Percival comes across a huge chasm in the cave that he wants to try to swing across using a piece of rope. The rope is far too short to provide a sufficiently wide swing, so we decide that this roll is going to test Percival's Acrobat skill at a difficulty of 3. So we roll 3 dice and we get 5, 2, and 3, making for a total of 10. Since Percival only has a 9 in Body, he fails the swing and falls into the chasm.


A few seconds later, he hits the floor only to find that something soft has broken his fall. Unfortunately, he's landed on another spider! And a much bigger one than before, at that! He takes up the axe and once again goes to fighting. Since this is a very challenging opponent, we say Percival's Fighter stat will be challenged at a difficulty of 3 dice.


The first roll is 4, 4, and 6, making for a total of 14. Percival has not only missed his strike since the number is greater than his Body stat, but he has been struck by the spider since he failed the roll by a margin of 3 or greater. The spider's fang punctures Pervical's arm as he draws near and he takes a strike this round.


The next roll is 6, 1, and 3, making for a total of 10. Percival has missed since the roll was higher than his Body stat, but he is not struck again because his failure was by a margin smaller than 3. Neither combatant takes a strike this round and the fight continues.


Instead of attempting to attack this round, Percival decides to Focus. He takes -2 to this roll and the next in exchange for being unable to strike the spider this round. The roll is 5, 2, and 1, making for a total of 8. After subtracting the two points he gained from focusing, the weighted roll for this turn is 6. He easily avoids being struck this round.


Percival gets ready to attack once more, the -2 on his roll should make it easier to land a strike this round. But that's not all, Percival is also going to invoke his Haste perk to attack twice this round! The roll is 3, 4, 4, making for a total of 11. But since Percival has the bonus from focusing last round, the total of his roll is 9 instead. Since 9 is equal to or less than Percival's Body score, he lands the strike! And since this is once again Percival's first strike against a new enemy, he deals 1 more strike! But wait, Percival rolls for another attack since he invoked Haste and landed his first hit! The rolls are 4, 4, and 3, making for 11. And since Percival still has the focus bonus this turn, the weighted result is another 9. He lands another strike on the spider! And since that makes three strikes, the greater spider is vanquished!


Given that Percival has just won an encounter, he recovers from 1 strike, as per the rules. The sting might still hurt a bit, but it's not significant enough to hold him back.

So that's basically it. Out of combat rolls are quite simple, just a binary pass/fail system based on a roll-under rule. Combat essentially takes the same form except there are four different payouts (Deal two strikes, deal one strike, deal nothing, take a strike) based on a scale of margins that are designed to be slightly in favor of the players. I know some aspects of this system might be unusual compared to more traditional RPGs like DnD, but I still think it's a fairly basic system and I'm confident I could keep track of just about everything I would need to using these rules. Let me know if that was at all helpful or if there's still confusion.

 

[MorganaLeFay]

That makes a LOT more sense now, and I really like the idea.


I want to do this now.

 

[HeyGayzelle]

Very cool. Glad my description was helpful. The system is mostly playable, but I need to decide how the EXP-like system is going to function. Do you want to try to re-skin the game for a more traditional fantasy feel, or do you want to stick with the science fantasy theme and do our dragon hunt in that world?

 

[MorganaLeFay]

Hmm.. I guess I'd like a more D&D type setting personally. I don't do well with science anything....

 

[HeyGayzelle]

That's fair. Skills like Blaster, Pilot, and maybe Tekker will probably have to be redefined into something more appropriate for the setting. I loosely modeled the system off Phantasy Star, which is essentially just a DnD-esque fantasy RPG with aliens, robots, and stuff like that thrown into the mix. I'll try to think of genre-appropriate alternatives in the meantime (might just go with things like philosophy, lore, maybe arithmetic or something, but I need a combat-oriented skill to replace Blaster). If you have any ideas, please let me know.


I'm not super demanding when it comes to this sort of thing, but I do value some good pre-game preparation if you have any ideas you would like to try to work into the story. But yeah, I feel like this could be quite fun even if it's just a very traditional RPG adventure.

 

[MorganaLeFay]

Yay! *does happy dance*


Suggestion: Since Blaster seems to be more of a ranged fighting style type, maybe a Ranger type thing? Bows and arrows.. throwing knives... that sort of thing?

 

[HeyGayzelle]

That could work if we just need a quick-and-dirty functional replacement, but in the context of a fantasy RPG, I really think of bows as being more of a physically-oriented stat. I suppose crossbows, or like, magic-lock rifles could be a reasonable alternative, but having crossbows as the only ranged weapon might be weird and magic guns might not exactly fit into your preferred setting. When you get down to it, Fighter, Blaster, and Sorceror are basically functionally identical aside from being governed by different stats (and resistances if playing with the Combat Specialization optional rule), so a new combat stat it isn't totally necessary, but I'm still interested in finding a suitable replacement since I intended for these rules to be reasonably open-ended on the sci-fi/fantasy continuum.


Pilot can obviously apply to vehicles like horses, ships, etc., but one of the only "mind" weapons I could think of in a fantasy setting would be like, trebuchets that you rely on geometry to aim, but obviously I don't think those will factor into our setting much. Maybe just straight up bombs will work since the system isn't really built around tracking consumable items and such.


Also while I don't think I'll end up going for this character concept myself, I also designed this system hoping that it would at least in theory be compatible with non-humanoid player characters by replacing things like character race and equipment statistics with these little modular perks.

 

[MorganaLeFay]

That makes sense. It was just a suggestion.


I don't know what I would be. I guess I should start thinking about that.

 

[HeyGayzelle]

Well, if we wanted to go for something conceptually similar, we could make the Mind combat skill be alchemical weapons like bombs, poisons, and things like that while we could consider normal ranged weapons like bows and stuff as using the fighter skill. At the very least, that would enable every combat skill to be used both up close and at range. Since there's only two of us, I doubt we'll play with the enemies having resistances to certain damage types unless we get way too strong and need to mix things up somehow.


If there's a certain character archetype you'd like to play, chances are the system might be able to support that in one way or another. I still need to give some thought towards what type of character I'd like to play.